City of Devils
by Gray-Rain Skies
Summary: And he's standing alone in the rain, a memory passing him by. [AxelRoxas]


A thank you to **Constance**, for reading this and complimenting it nicely, and **Ana**, for getting on my ass about posting it and inevitably saving it from collecting dust. I just hope it's worth all that, lol.

...I am _not _being productive, no. And it makes me sad, because I _really _want to write those dedications, but dammit, I just can't. And this is what's resulting - an angsty Akuroku planned a long time ago but encouraged finally into being by the random playing of Yellowcard on my computer. So, yus. Pointless, probably bad, oneshot, for your reading pleasure. Hope you like it.

Inspired by **City of Devils **of Yellowcard.

**Disclaimer**: I own not Kingdom Hearts nor Yellowcard's genius or ideas.

-- - --

The hiss of the rain filled the streets, harsh and unforgiving, and he flinched. Around him, the world stretched only as far as the buildings that blended in with the darkness, street corners swallowed whole, the road tar-black and slick and camouflaged against the emptiness of the night. Even the moon stayed away, so that it was his eyes that glowed with brilliance, green and surreal as the downpour fell in sheets, as the black curled closer around his arms.

And as he waited, his body steadily growing colder, his clothes weighted down by the damp, that light of his eyes narrowed, dimmed, and a scowl flitted across his face. There was no call for this, for him to bare himself to the mercy of the elements, for him to waste his time under a moonless night staring into depths he cared not for. With a click of his boots and the twist of his cloak, he could be gone from here easily, a portal summoned with the casual flick of his wrist. He could desert the last spot soft lips had moved and blond hair had shifted from the wind, the last place where blue eyes flashed in a maddeningly convincing look of pain before that back turned on him finally, completely, wholly. He could leave the memories haunting every shadow, laugh at the self-righteous display of heroics with a scorn so deep it could smother the betrayal.

Instead, pathetically, predictably, he stared at the spot where his best friend had last spoken to him, transfixed, unable to understand why, for so long, he'd been standing there, doing nothing. He was not so weak-minded. He did not so easily give up.

And yet he had. He had.

"Fuck."

The word, though not wholly breaking his trance, had him shifting his feet, had him walking across the cobblestones of the world, hollow footsteps echoing in the sharp sound of clicks. The dampness on his face was now no longer just rain, and the trembling in his clenched hands was no longer just from cold, and as vacantly he turned his head and raked his eyes in a slow fashion from the bottom to the top of random skyscrapers, the fire built up in his body, the rage tasting like ash on his tongue.

He'd been left behind, with no place to take up now that the person who'd made his nonexistence worth something had run, afraid of the dark, wanting more light, more truth. He was left in hell, unchanging, unaffected hell, sin whispering around him in the form of ghosts and evil carried in his own breast. _Blondie_ could escape, sure, could reach for the hope no other Nobody was able to stare at full on, it like a sun too hot and bright for their eyes to take; and that was just dandy, really, because who was he to the one destined to save worlds, the one fated to court the side of light rather than roll around with the side of darkness? That was just _fine_. Sin tasted sweeter on the tongue, and the brat would just have to be denied the pleasure.

Sucking in a breath, gaze blurring as anger flashed through his body, he then clenched his teeth in a half-hearted attempt to keep control, to keep from himself the truth that he was hurt, even when feeling was impossible. The boy only cared for himself, was not so angelic despite the look of him, and he shouldn't let the shock of his leaving wound him any longer. He was replaceable; new memories needed only to be formed.

Yet this was a lie, he knew that in his gut, and in frustration as he stopped walking he let loose from within him a blaze of flames, the fire shooting in twin lines from either side of him, roaring and crackling in a great display of anger. Climbing higher and higher, fighting against the natural strength of the rain pouring down still from the clouds, the fire twisted and leapt, lunged for the buildings and licked at the cobblestones as erratically he breathed in and out, watching silently, green eyes dancing from the flickering light. Cast into proportion, his face seemed too pale, too pained, the tattoos biting into his cheekbones and the twist of his mouth looking more and more as if it were trembling and faltering from sadness. He was weak, that much could be seen as his hands clenched and his frame shook, his body nearly doubling over; and as the water overtook his element, as the pureness of a natural rain drowned out the final embers of all of his rage, he fell to his knees in a spectacular display of defeat, gloved fingers clutching at red hair, eyes closing to the world around him. His jaw clenched, slackened, and his lips trembled.

Roxas was not coming back. No matter how much he wanted him to, the boy would not reappear, would not cast upon his pitiful form a single blue-eyed glance. Days of cold shoulders and odd stares, of frustrated shakes of a head tossing blonde bangs from stern eyes, of tentative smiles and casual shrugs, of hugs and laughs and bonding…they were dashed to hell and subjected as well to nonexistence, made only now to resound in memory here with him in this corner of darkness, as were the nights and the intimacy and the desire that shouldn't have existed in the first place. It was as if it all had never happened. It was as if what he was reliving and replaying on the dark of his eyelids had never mattered once.

And maybe to Roxas it hadn't.

Maybe that was why, when he'd sworn aloud so foolishly that he would, in fact, miss his blond hair and blue eyes and bright temper, the boy had ignored him, had kept on walking. But Axel would never know, would he? He would be stuck in a suffering darker than the blackest nights, crueler than the worst torture, his own imagined pain plaguing his nonexistence. This memory would always replay in his dreams, this city of devils would always follow him no matter whatever worlds he visited. It was inevitable, that; inescapable.

Pressing his palms into cobblestones, curling his fingers against the slick wetness of the ground, he cringed, body tensing, head bowing, and closed his eyes against the tears that dropped softly to the road beneath his form. He gave his head a soft, insistent shake in time, body shuddering pathetically, his strength caving in as he let himself desire selfishly the boy back into his life, let himself imagine that living without the truth, without searching for one's other, was bearable, a fair trade for what he and Roxas had had. The blond was the one who was being selfish, truthfully; he was the one at fault.

After all, he hadn't even apologized. He hadn't even spared a proper goodbye.

"F-fuck."

Fisting his hand, he slammed it down hard into the cobblestones, repeating the curse, muttering and scowling and shaking with sorrow. This pain, it shouldn't exist, _couldn't _exist, and yet it was undeniable; Roxas had taught him to feel, and he was feeling now, left in the shadow the blond had cast and smothered by it. He'd taught him to feel, only to believe himself to be emotionless and able to walk away altogether, to search for a life with more answers, more point.

And it was an irony that made Axel so completely _sick_.

-- - --

_I_...dunno. You tell me, hah. Please review.


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